From the Principles of International Environmental Law to Environmental Constitutionalism: Competitive or Cooperative Influences?

Since the ’70s, as a response to the lack of effectiveness, national legal systems initiated the path towards the constitutional recognition of the environment. In reference to the legal efforts in trying to cope with environmental issues, the basic question is whether constitutions matter and to what extent environmental constitutionalism is a “different species” or a genetic and physiological variant of constitutionalism, thus deserving an autonomous epistemological space or demanding for a proper role within already existing theoretical patterns. Starting from the aforementioned introductory assumptions, this essay deals with the first international community’s step towards the establishment of a proper legal framework for environmental matters, to later outline the body of international environmental principles that still nowadays represent the backbone of environmental law. Thus, the analysis critically addresses theories about contemporary forms of constitutionalism, then focusing on environmental constitutionalism and the different approaches that scholarly debates could assume in reference to the constitutionalization of the environment.